When you say "that's so gay"...

"When you say 'that's so gay' do you realize what you say? Knock it Off."

Setting: A mall, a grocery store, a pizza place
The players: a group of girls or guys, a semi well-known actor or actress such as Hilary Duff or Wanda Sykes
The reason? A "think before you speak" ad asking, or rather, demanding, that the general public refrain from using the phrase "that's so gay".

Now, although this message is indeed an imporatant one, I think that there are many flaws in this ad. One, I feel that this ad is simply doing what it is trying to stop: it is associating the word "gay" with words such as "bad" or "stupid". In these ads, the famous character says something like "don't say something is gay when you mean it's (insert negative adjective here)". Now, in my mind, this is only telling me that the word gay is used to mean "bad or stupid" (even though gay is not even an adjective at all, but that is an entirley different battle). Second, saying "knock it off" at the end only makes me, as a consumer, feel a little threatend. I, personally, don't like when television ads/public service annoucement boss me around.

In short: good idea, bad advertisement. Then again, I don't have any better ideas, so who am I to critisize? I guess that's why I'm not on the career path to a job in advertising. My full (officially) quarter as a journalism student, however, has brought me to look at television ads with a much more critical eye (knowing that all ads must be relevent AND memorable, never either/or).

So what do you think? Let me know about some ads that you think are missing their mark, I'd love to hear it/discuss it with you.

The F Word

How do you spell stress? Why, F-I-N-A-L-S of course. Only one exam into the four that I am scheduled for this week, and I firmly believe that my high school may have failed me. You see, at my high school, we were rewarded for good grades, attitude, and attendance with what was called a "Rennisance Card"; you recieved a Gold, Red, or Silver card depending on your achivements (Gold being the highest, and so on down the line). Along with the perks that came with this card was the oppurtunity to exempt exams (Gold- 3 exams, Red- 2 exams, Silver- 1). Now, by the time you exempted three exams, most high achievers were left with one semi-hard class, but most likley there "easiest" hard class, and elective classes. Sure, we had to take the exam if we were in AP, but besides all of that, my point is that I've never had to study for four equallly challenging exams all at once; this may be obvious, seeing that I still have three more exms to go and instead of studying, I've decided that blogging is a better use of my time. I guess this will just give me an oppurtunity to learn how to better manage my time while studying though, right?

Any suggestions, drop them my way!

"If I could change the world..."

Although I wouldn't call this blog political, it seems to be the theme lately (and for good reason). The recent election seems to have brought the good and the bad out of everyone. Although my political preference may be obvious, I'm going to try to keep this post as neutral as possible. So here goes:

In my opinion, "trash talking" the current president-elect is pointless. The Democratic candidate won (and by a fairly large margin) and any arguments that can be made about why he shouldn't have been elected will not change the results. As someone who believes that the best form of  election publicity is to promote one's strengths rather than expose the opponent's weaknesses, I don't believe that this kind of talk works before election day, much less after. Both candidates had, in my opinion, good and bad things to offer, and now all that America can do is see what happens. 

Also, while I'm on the subject, although I'd like to believe that every person who voted is educated about the decision they made, I know that this isn't the case. It makes me think of one of the possible essay questions I could have answered in a local pageant I was in. Although I didn't choose to write about this question, I think about it a lot; the question was:

"Do you believe that a woman is capable of being the next president of the United States?"

Now, although I know that this question was asked because we were young high school women expected to write about woman's rights, I think that this question was very irrelevant. Do I believe that a woman is capable of being the next president? Of course, a woman is just as capable as anyone else. Would I choose a candidate because she's a woman and I want a woman to be president? No way. President's should be chosen for one reason and one reason only: their stance on the issues and what they plan to do. Picking a president should be done with eyes closed. I wouldn't vote for someone because they were white or because they have something in common with me, and other voters shouldn't either.

Then again, these ideas are all pretty irrelevant now that the election is over. Promise me you'll keep it in mind for in four years?

Until then, here's something funny to ease all the post-election tension! Enjoy.

 

DON'T VOTE

Caught you off guard didn't I? We're so use to hearing "Vote", "Rock the Vote", "Get out and Vote", that the thought of someone encouraging us not to vote is almost crazy. I personally don't think I could make a strong case to anyone as to why voting would not benefit them. Although individual reasons for voting may not be the same, the outcome is: change. Change: a chance to have a say in what's happening where we live, where our parents live, where our children (will) live. 

As a PR student, I found this particular YouTube Ad to be pretty powerful. Maybe I was first drawn in because of the big names in it, but I continued watching it because it is real; real passion, real ideas, a real message. Sure it's humorous at times, but the message is such a serious one. Today is  November 4th 2008, have you voted yet?